Don’t copy America’s flawed democracy

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Europe, human rights and devolution are a slow assault on the British constitution. Lords reform will be next

Writing in his masterpiece Democracy in America, the great social
commentator Alexis de Tocqueville acknowledged that the Senate was a
particular adornment to the US Constitution: “The Senate contains within a
small space a large proportion of the celebrated men of America ... eloquent
advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, and statesmen of note,
whose arguments would do honour to the most remarkable parliamentary debates
of Europe.”

How wise it was, then, of the American founding fathers to insist on direct
election to the Senate. Except that they didn’t. At the 1787 Constitutional
Convention they specifically rejected direct election, voting unanimously
instead